The Dog Tags of John Parker Ch.1

Author’s note: This is a creative essay to tell the first chapter in The Dog Tags of John Parker. This is meant to explain the tale of a young private trying to survive in the Iraq War.

"30 seconds!" said Sergeant Ficham as we grew near the landing zone. Even with the doors closed the propellers of the Black Hawk were deafening. The gunner took his hands off the safety handles of the helicopter and took the handles to the mini gun. I wondered what threat these al Qaeda members opposed that we would need the cover of a mini gun for. I made sure everything was secure from my bullet proof vest to my knee guards. When I tightened my equipment with my shaky hands, I took a nervous gulp and held on to my M16A4 assault rifle.

I looked around, seeing just about everyone else as nervous as I was. Everyone was shaking, sweaty, and tightening their grip on the safety as we grew closer to the blazing, sandy ground. Unexpectedly, there was a big thud, everyone shook, and it was difficult to keep my balance, the doors flew open, eager to get out I stumbled forward but the sergeant grabbed my arm and stopped me dead in my tracks. I stared at him in confusion

"Sir, why did you stop me?" I yelled due to the loudness of the propellers.
"The gunner's going to lay down cover fire, unless you want to get caught in that stay in the dang chopper!"

I looked back at the mini gun and the gunner was a good friend, Pvt. James McKinley him and we treated each other like brothers during boot camp. Unfortunately, the only reason he's in the military is to pay for his college. He was tightly grasping the handles to fire the gargantuan rotating barrels. He starred into the open town and without warning his thumbs clamped down onto the buttons of the handles. His entire body vibrated as an endless concentrated fire came streaming out of the barrel. Small explosions flooded the whole town braking windows, kicking up dust, and crumbling the structures as empty shells spat out of the side of the turret. Again it stopped as quickly as it started, Pvt. McKinley took his thumbs off "Go Go Go!" Screamed sergeant Ficham,

As soon as it was yelled every Marine in the helicopters everywhere around the area hopped out and sprinted toward the town.
Fifty marines went into the town, twenty five men to each side of the town. Hugging the walls, we looked all over the town searching for any enemy contact. It was as quiet as a feather hitting the surface of a pond. Though with this quiet, it was always uneasy and nobody was calm. As we hugged the walls I noticed that the street split into two, on the other side where the other team was I saw death starring at me. What I saw was an al Qaeda sniper on the roof of a two story building, armed with Dragunov sniper rifle. He was wearing pitch black sun glasses, he had a bandana wrapped around his face from his nose down, and he had brown hair with a black t-shirt and black jeans, and had a belt of sniper rounds around from his shoulder to his waste. I tried to scream "Get dow-" but as soon as I opened my mouth a bullet whizzed past my face so fast that it split the hairs on my right sideburns. I was so glad that he missed, if there was ever a point in my life where I was truly scared or terrified it would be that moment. I heard a large thud on the ground, still petrified from the miss fire I managed to slowly look behind me and see that the shooter didn't miss, I was never his target.

Behind me was Private George Baker, lying on the sandy ground with a small bloody hole going straight through his forehead. I was sick to my stomach, his eyes were staring straight ahead with no expression, there was a pool of blood slowly forming on the ground, and he was as motionless and as dead as a stump. The sniper shot again, this time he aimed for marines on the other side. I didn’t know who was shot this time, but from across the street I saw the bullet hit him dead center in the chest and out his back where it kicked up sand behind him. A red mist flew out of his chest and his back; he threw his arms in the air making him drop his weapon. He fell backward onto the warm tan sand with his arms spread out, someone kneeled down to see if he was okay but I already knew he was dead as well as Private Baker.
By this time I was scared out of my mind, two marines dead forty eight still standing. It was very unusual to come across such well trained al Qaeda; I was shaking so much I had almost dropped my gun. It was surprising how fast this happened,

“Take cover!” The sergeant finally said. Everyone started backing up to take positions behind walls, trash cans, or anything that would hind from that sniper while he continued to fire. McKinley, Sergeant Ficham, and I ran back in an ally way as dirt kicked up behind us from the sniper trying to take us out. I was facing opposite of the sniper with my back to a wall, I look back to see James holding his right arm tightly as streaks of blood ran down his left hand.

“What went wrong James?” I began to say,
“I slowed down to look back and see where he was to get a shot off him but he shot and nicked me in the arm. Don’t worry I’m fine.”

He said in a confident deep voice. Sergeant Ficham looked at the wound and immediately set his SCAR-H rifle down and took out a long white cloth. James took his hand off his wound and the sergeant began to wrap it around it.
“Here you go son, don’t worry I’ve been trained in medical gizmos.” The Sarg said in his southern rattled voice. James started to speak again, squinted his eyes from the pain of the wound,

“John…can you get a shot off of the sniper?”
I reached into my pocket as quickly as I could, my hands were still shaking from fear I managed to pull out a scope for my rifle, and I slide it slowly on my M16A4 until a springy click sounded. I peak my head around the corner cautiously so I am not seen as I also pull my rifle around. Through my cross hairs, the sniper seems so close up that I can see through his black sun glasses to his right eye. Out of confidence I say “gotcha.” And I pull the trigger as fast as I can; as soon as I fire the right eyeglass lens shatters as red mist streams from his eye. Without any hesitation the shooter collapses onto the roof of the building: dead.

I was glad to know that wouldn’t have to hide anymore, I hate to hide it makes me feel like there’s nothing that I can do. All of my fellow marines started coming out into the open cautiously. Everyone was looking around for more enemies; they started asking “what happened did someone kill him?” and one marine came up to me and said “it was Parker, he’s the one.” Then everyone started looking at me weirdly, and saying “are you crazy? You could have been killed.” I had had enough so I finally snapped back

“Hey he killed two soldiers, he was going to kill more if I hadn’t stopped him you ungrateful idiots!” Pvt. McKinley stepped in with his hand on his right shoulder
“Yeah, all of you shut the heck up! You should be thankful he stepped in and did anything while you cowards were hiding!”

The rest of the marines backed up just a little and had a guilty expression on their faces; they backed up because James happened to be the bigger and stronger soldier than everyone else. We were all six feet tall but James was at least six feet eight. There was a dead silence among us, but as always it was broken with sergeant Ficham coming in. “Alright ladies cut the chit chat we’re a team and none of you forget that. Now, we need to figure out where that sniper came from and this town is deserted which will make it a lot easier. Now move out!” At that note we all acknowledged with “Woohaa!”

48 marines marching 3 by 3’s, we were all looking around more cautiously kicking up sand as the heat caused us to sweat bullets. I looked at Pvt. McKinley’s bandage; he wasn’t holding his shoulder anymore.
“How’s the arm J?” I asked him, we called each other “J.”
“Much better, our sergeant sure knows how to fix people. That was awesome back there by the way.”

“What? Oh when I killed him, oh yeah I just saw what needed to be done.”
The sergeant yelled for silence as he answered the radio, we could hear static coming from the radio, on the other line was Captain Anderson. Sergeant Ficham made a serious face as he was listening and started asking concerning questions.
“Where is your position?” Asked Ficham,
“About one mile north from your position, were pinned down……..need reinforcements!” Replied Captain Anderson,
“What are you up against sir?” Replied the Sergeant,
“About ninety five al Qaeda and Taliban forces pinning us down on the outskirts of the town, trucks with mounted machineguns and some troops are carrying RPG’s!” (Rocket propelled grenades).
“Understood, over and out.” Said Ficham
A marine came up to sergeant Ficham and asked what happened, he replied back to all of us.
“All right, Captain Anderson and his men are in trouble just north of here. What I need is a sniper or scout team to take out RPG’s and truck turrets to make it easy for us, then if they have wounded we’ll send in evacuation. I only need four snipers lets have McKinley, Parker, Holland, and Hull since you’re the only one that has that experience.”

A part of me had always wanted to be a sniper; to take out enemies while being hidden. But a part of me didn’t because if you miss they hide. All four of us were handed 50 cal. Sniper rifles, they were heavy but very powerful one shot could go through two people. Ficham began to talk again
“Take the roof tops that’ll give you a good angle on them and it looks like its all clear.”
James strapped the sniper to his back then climbed on a barrel and jumped on to a crate then jumped to the roof. I was right behind him surprised that he was able to do it with his arm. He turned around and I held up my hand. James grabbed my forearm, I grabbed his and he pulled me up. The roofs and the two story tall buildings were all concrete with chimneys in every other roof. When all four of us got up I started to run in direction of the distress call, with four feet between buildings I jumped to the other. As I look down I can see our troop marching at the bottom. There was a large box in my way so I put my left hand on it with enough momentum to bring both my legs sideways over it to the other side and keep running. The adrenalin to keep moving that I had was amazing I felt like nothing could stop me. The sergeant went on the radio

“Don’t hurt yourself up there we need you to get things done.”
I knew I wasn’t being careful, if I was careful I would be going a lot slower. There was a wall in front of me that was so tall I could only see sky over it. As I was running towards it I didn’t know what was behind it so I hoped for the best. I overheard Private McKinley calling to me,
“John no, you don’t know how high that drop is!”

I didn’t listen and I didn’t care, I grab the top of the wall with both hands and pull myself up. As soon as I’m on the wall I looked over and at the corner of my eye across the street, there was a man in a large white robe staring at me. He had black short hair with sunglasses while holding an AK-47. He was staring straight at me while standing on the roof of a one story building. We both were silent and didn’t move, without warning the man stepped back and fired. It was a five round burst, his barrel lit up for a second while the bullets whizzed through the air making bullet holes in a row, hitting the wall and aiming towards me. The bullet holes got closer breaking and smashing the structure until one bullet smashed the top ledge of the wall I was on. The bullet flew through the top of the wall causing the ledge to come out from under me. I began to fall, I knew if I fell from this height it would be two stories, so I jumped to the next building. Looking down I’m realizing that I should have listened to my friend.

To be continued…